Everything you Need to Know About Icing an Injury

After speaking to hundreds of clients in Mississauga about their training injuries over the past year, I realized that nearly everyone used cold application differently. A popular misconception is that you are reaping all the benefits from icing as long as you apply some form of it to any type of injury. Not only can incorrect application of ice prove to be ineffective, it may even do the opposite of what was intended and become damaging to the body. Yes, there are some inherent physical differences in people that call for more or less cold application. Apart from that research has come up with ideal parameters including temperature, duration, method, and purpose for icing that everyone should be aware of.

These parameters optimize the benefits of icing while reducing the risks. Understanding the current evidence behind cryotherapy (cold application for therapeutic benefit) is highly relevant since nearly everyone has used some form of icing for their training injuries. Such evidence provides icing guidelines to more effectively relieve pain, decrease the chance of re-injury, and improve healing time to get you back to the activities you love. Here we examine everything about cryotherapy including the body’s response to it, the clinical reasoning behind its use, correct parameters to follow, effective techniques, and precautions and risks. It is my hope you realize the powerful benefits of this form of therapy by putting it into practice and helping others understand how to use icing for injuries.

Proper Icing Can: Reduce Swelling

Most of us have been in that moment on the floor after a sprained ankle thinking this is going to suck, and it usually does. One wrong or poorly timed step, and you can damage ligaments, tendons, vessels, bones, cartilage, muscles, and the list goes on. Seconds after this occurs, your body initiates the first process of healing known as hemostasis to prevent excess bleeding from damaged blood vessels. As this happens, blood will pool into the tissue surrounding the injury creating a hematoma (blood accumulation outside of its vessels) to occur. The result is an abnormally enlarged body part from all the fluid accumulation, commonly referred to as swelling. You want to minimize swelling because it puts pressure on the surrounding tissue, decreases a muscle’s ability to contract, and hinders range of motion at a joint.

One of the main goals of cryotherapy is to reduce the hematoma at the site of injury. When an area of your skin is exposed to low external temperatures for long enough your body initiates a hemodynamic response. This involves a reflexive vasoconstriction (decreased diameter) in the nearby blood vessels and an increase in blood viscosity (thickness). Both of these processes reduce the flow of blood in the region which effectively minimizes swelling. To picture how the hemodynamic response reduces flow, imagine going from drinking water with a wide straw to drinking a thick milkshake with a thinner straw. Local reduction in blood flow also keeps the cold temperatures contained within the area being iced. The body does this because it will do anything to maintain its core temperature at an equilibrium of approximately 37 degrees Celsius. We as therapists, personal trainers, and athletes take advantage of this ability of the human body. You can be confident that an area of ice application will remain cold without quickly dissipating and affecting your core temperature.

Continue to page 2 to read about how icing can decrease pain and muscle spasms

It’s the same routine every time. Your training was just filled with blood, sweat, and tears – sometimes one more than the others. You sit down and instinctively grab your shaker cup that’s filled with all your post-workout powders. What’s left in your huge jug of water is thrown into the cup, and you shake that baby with all the energy that’s left. Voila, that summarizes most people’s post-workout nutrition in a nutshell. Not a great deal of thought

I kid you not, 80-90% of people resolve their low back pain in 3 months with OR without a therapist laying a finger on them. This is when most people with low back pain give me a look of disbelief (sometimes even more), but it’s something we see clinically. Of course, there are special cases as well as ways to speed up the process and prevent the pain from coming back. If you have neurological symptoms such as accompanying pain that shoots down your leg, that can last as long as 2 years before you experience any relief.

From an anatomical standpoint the problem lies in your pelvic floor health which I’ll explain in more detail shortly. However, if I told you the purpose of a squat is not actually for working out you’d probably think I’m crazy. For years it’s been a staple in every lifter’s workout assuming they don’t skip leg day. Days of agony from stiff legs after a good squat may seem like further evidence against my point. Hear me out though. Before the invention of the toilet, how do you think we pooped?

Watching George St-Pierre (MMA legend) popping shark cartilage pills was the first time I obsessed over glucosamine. His analogy when he brought up shark cartilage was that your body is like a car. Athletes like him treat their bodies like Ferraris meaning they need premium fuel. After hearing this I thought man, I’m at least a ford mustang, why haven’t I used this savage supplement before? I wouldn’t be surprised if you found glucosamine in a convenience store nowadays although it may not be from a shark.

Little did I know how popular this question was until I was in the process of googling it. Without even finishing the phrase “Do I need a pe” Google automatically gave me “Do I need a personal trainer?” and not “Do I need a pet?” as a drop-down option. Quite frankly, this made me realize that this question is on the mind of almost anyone deciding to make a change for their health. So I began looking deeper into the search results for this question and they were pretty underwhelming.

Ever stuck for an energy-packed snack before squeezing in a quick workout? Between working the 9 to 5 grind, picking up the kids from the sitter, and whipping up a quick dinner you tend to forget to think about the nutrition you need before a workout. Did you know that dates are the powerhouse of all fruits? Dates are also traditionally used to break fast during the month of Ramadan! They are a high source of natural sugars such as sucrose, fructose and glucose; making them great for an afternoon pick-me-up!

Pain is described by many as a hurtful experience related to tissue damage, but stopping at that would only explain a small aspect of this complex experience. Rather, it is better to think of pain as the ultimate output. It scrutinizes multiple inputs including but not limited to hurt/damage. We now understand that emotional state, memories of past experiences, context, body location, and cultural beliefs are also relevant inputs. The combination of these inputs is often required to create something deemed as pain and it is explained best by Melzack’s Neuromatrix Theory of Pain. His theory describes pain as being comprised of three domains.

As I type this article, I become conscious of how I position my wrists due to the topic at hand (pun definitely intended). Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is relevant to anyone who uses a keyboard a lot, plays a musical instrument, or uses small tools on a daily basis repeatedly. Around 10% of people are either dealing with some form of CTS or are in the process of developing it in North America.

Let’s face it, many of us suffer from shin splints and have no idea what to do with it. Running is perfectly fine until a dull shin pain slowly creeps in on us and boom, it’s here to stay until further notice. Whether you consult a fitness trainer or search online for treatment options you will often be told to rest when symptoms are bad, and you should. My problem with rest is it doesn’t address the cause of injury.

Let’s have a little lesson about human anatomy when it comes to mobility and stability. Which joint in the human body do you think can operate and move in the most directions using the most range of motion possible? If you guessed the hip, then you are on the right track, but not quite there. As you will find out from Mississauga personal training, the shoulder joint, also known as the glenohumeral joint offers the body the most mobility.